Ascension, Intro
by L.Spires
Summary: This week I went from impoverish back to princess. My brother recognized me for the first time in years, to tell me I'm getting married to a Mad King. Then there's the treasonous witchcraft, the devastating possibilities for what's left of my coven. Follow me as I spiral out of control.


NOTE: This story does not feature characters from Reign, it has the most similar atmosphere I could find in fiction, and I was very inspired by the show.

 **-** **R** enewal - **Chapter 1**

The grounds were buzzing with festivity. I listened clearly but I still couldn't make it all out, I never would. Vendors were selling things that bubbled, sizzled and popped. There was a small step band playing a jaunty tune, but the sounds of the crowd overwhelmed all but the recorder. Somehow the sounds of change till's snapping shut was louder than the music. As we approached the track the overwhelming sounds from before took the background. Sounds of conversation breached the wall of noise, girlish giggles, grizzly snapping commands. A man in a tweed suit was chewing out a stable boy – probably a sponsor, or a gambler – they were always the most uptight and the least in control.

"You walk so slow-." Meredith rolled her eyes. "My heels are longer and I'm not limping behind."

"Your legs are also longer." I didn't understand how my sister could even compare us. She was a head taller than me, and next to her I looked utterly graceless. Our midwife once joked she delivered us in the wrong order. Now jokes like that just sent my mother into a rage.

Meredith was a better daughter. She would've been a better choice for a firstborn to marry off. My father disagreed, he wouldn't step away from tradition and neither would the kingdom of Raif.

It was strange to think if they had agreed my sister would be marrying the Raif King.

Instead, I was.

Races. I was at the races, and I would enjoy them. I wasn't going to let the many things outside my control cave me in. I could feel the weight of it in my shoulders, I didn't need it dancing across my head on my last day home, my last day with my little sister.

She reached for my hand with a dramatic sigh. "Should've brought you a pram, could have pushed you right through."

"It would give them all something else to talk about."

"Other than the marriage?" Meredith scoffed. "They'd still talk about it stupid, it's something most of them have been waiting their whole lives to see. Raif offers a militant strength that Eary has never had behind it-."

"I'm aware." Our mother lectured almost exclusively on this. She used to cover an assortment of topics, from how I didn't wear my dresses right to how indecent the length and height of a bun could be. Now it was all about the other Kingdom, about respecting the lands of Raif.

Eary offered Raif resources, especially in alchemical venues. It was about where our kingdom fell, the order we were born, the family we came to. Nothing was left to choice in this world, it was all the grand decisions of an almighty God in the sky, or a system based on the belief.

I wasn't so sure. Being not so sure hadn't yet landed me among the headless, but I thought one day it might. Now I was leaving Eary, abandoning half of my small coven. I couldn't take them all on to wait on me.

My mother wouldn't let me take kitchen maid's and beggars. It was a question I hadn't wanted to ask but needed to. Her hand had flexed but she made better of the motion and sent a vase spilling off the side-table. It was dramatic but it got the point across.

 _All the unsaid things made my mother's cheeks hollow and tight. She had a blue vein around the edge of her forehead and it was pulsing in between her words. "You're like a little girl. You have no grasp of hierarchy." She shook her head. I thought it was over but it was not. It was never over exactly, her lectures could last weeks, some had lasted my entire life. Sometimes brief stints of life interrupted but Greta always got back on-topic. "I tried to teach it to you, I tried to beat it out of you, but nothing I do seems to matter. You're going to make such a mockery of this family."_

Greta looked deep in your soul when she insulted you. Meredith could be mean but whenever she hit a soft spot she couldn't help but look away. Eyes on the windows, the floors, maybe it was something she learned from our Mother, or the hierarchy.

"Stop wallowing." Meredith's hand tugged on my wrist, her words slipping under the loud ringing bell. The gates went up with a snap. "You made us late."

I liked the horses but watching the jockeys rip into them made me feel a little lofty. I started thinking of people beating me into my place, or gentle-prodding, they said. Either way they chose the direction.

"Do you even want to be here?" The races were always more for my father than Meredith and I. The informal race meant there weren't even jousting tents erected, or places to sit. The people clustered around were so tightly packed you couldn't see anything.

"I want to have a good time." My sister's voice was almost accusational. Was I about to get in the way of our last feel-good day? "Come on, we'll get closer."

She hooked her arm through mine, pulling us closer to the dusty clouds surrounding the track. In the fairground we were just another few people, no one was looking at us. That was something I could appreciate about being here.

Miles and miles of open field and expansive pastures took the first hour in the carriage. It rocked beneath us, wheels grinding over every pebble, every moderatley sized rock sending the interior weaving over the smoothed down roads. My mother flattened her skirts across from me, knees pressed tight together, lips pursed

A part of me was convinced this carriage-ride would never end, it was Hell being smashed in a pumpkin-sized box with them.

"It'll just be worse at the dock." My mother's eyes buzzed over me, pressed against the carriage wall. It felt good to press my shoulder bone against the wall, even if every judder broke right through me. It was the one thing I decided about any of this, a resting position, in a carriage I never wanted to be in, heading towards an arrangement I was never made for.

My older brother took the crown, I was never supposed to be a queen. Eary was a tenth the size of an actual Kingdom, the only thing that had kept us afloat was backing from allies based on gold, from the rich trade system. It didn't help that I was too troublesome to keep at court, at least for my mother. My father and I got along swimmingly until his death. After that my brother accepted my mother's pleas to have me pulled from the court, stuck up in a nice-empty Victorian – the kind mistress' retired in with high-class bastards.

This turned out to be a mistake.

When a cavern was discovered deep beneath the blue crags of Lively, so were thousands of Caes. Caes; looked like rocks aside from the glowing, they held solid magic. They were used for enchanting weaponry, crossbows that shoot themselves, venomous swords and impenetrable armor.

The Caes kept Eary standing. My brother was as controlling as my mother, and if someone would take our Kingdom they would leave with nothing. There were Caes set to explode in every cavern, how they went off and who controlled them was of much debate. People had broken in before in attempts to find out and undo the traps so they could take down my brother and steal the Caes. They never got very far. Eary was small but had the will of a slighted toddler. It still stood.

When the cavern and the Caes were uncovered, King Archer of Raif sent his proposal. My mother tried to convince Norman to offer him Meredith. Norman didn't want to risk sounding insulting but had a soft spot for my mother. When he asked he was shut down. The entire thing made me uncomfortable. Like, say he hadn't asked – I'd be getting married because Norman didn't want to be insulting. I wasn't sure that old-tradition was any better, the only thing that helped was thinking that Archer had brought this upon himself. He could've had my sister, even if the only difference he really knew between us was our birth order.

It had been quiet in the carriage for a while. Meredith had made a half-attempt at conversation, these were our last few hours together until she was allowed to visit, way off in the distant future where I was Queen and this had actually happened.

It was hard with our mother present, I got that. I was glad we'd had yesterday. We hadn't won, we almost never actually won since our bets were random and based on markings more than math. We ate at the feast after, escaping to the bank of the river to eat cake and sip champagne in our own sort of silence.

The silence with Mom was shoulders-back, head up. It was a stiff and crippling. I wondered what quiet it would dissolve into it, the sick feeling in my stomach turning hot. I shifted my hand behind the fold of my dress where my mother couldn't see. Meredith's palm encased mine. We didn't speak or let go for the rest of the ride.


End file.
